Circular’s new smart rings do something Oura and Galaxy Ring can’t

Add Android Authority on Google: TL;DR Circular has announced its new Ring 3 Pro and Ring 3 Slim. The Ring 3 Pro offers more features and longer battery life, but both versions offer contactless payments linked to supported Visa or Mastercard cards. Pricing and availability aren’t yet known. Circular has announced two new smart rings that come with features that might make Oura and Galaxy Ring users jealous. At IFA today, the company’s taking the wraps off its new Circular Ring 3 Pro and Ring 3 Slim. Like all smart rings, Circular’s new models monitor activity and sleep — but they also do things competing rings can’t, like alert vibrations and contactless NFC payments.The Circular Ring 3 Pro can d0 more than the lighter-weight Ring 3 Slim. The Pro version comes with FDA-cleared ECG functionality, blood-pressure monitoring features, and a larger battery. Both models come with support for NFC payments and a vibration motor that can be used for silent alarms and other alerts from the rings’ companion app.NFC for contactless payments is a big get for Circular — bigger players in the smart ring space still don’t offer that feature. The company says it’ll work with “supported Visa and Mastercard cards,” but we don’t know which Visas and Mastercards are supported or how payments will actually work just yet.The Circular Ring 3 Slim’s appeal is that it’s, well, slim: it’s 5.9mm wide and 2.35mm thick, compared to the Pro’s 6.8mm by 2.78mm. It’s also about 33% lighter than the Pro version. Battery life is shorter, advertised as up to 10 days — two days less than the Ring 3 Pro’s 12 days. Those both beat the outgoing Circular Ring 2’s up-to-seven-day battery life, though.Both new models track all the normal smart ring stuff, too, like activity, sleep stats, blood oxygen (SpO2), and heart rate variability. Circular also says its Kira companion app uses AI to give personalized insights and health recommendations based on tracked data, if you’re into that sort of thing.Circular hasn’t announced pricing or availability for its new rings yet. The existing Circular Ring 2 starts at $349 and, unlike Oura, doesn’t require a subscription to access its full feature set.Thank you for being part of our community. Read our Comment Policy before posting.